Finally, here's my Cribs review

Now it's been handed in it's all official so here goes...

The Cribs – Newcastle University Basement 30/09/09
The Cribs were back in Newcastle tonight unveiling their new guitarist, The Smiths legend, Johnny Marr.

New album ‘Ignore The Ignorant’ was prominent in the set list being just two weeks since the release so a lot of the songs were quite new and have raised expectations of what the album sounds like in full.

The lack of older songs such as Martell and You’re Gonna Lose Us, which were crowd pleasers at past shows, didn’t seem to have much of an impact on the show.

Although it was sad to some to see them go, tracks from the new album such as City of Bugs were deemed just as good.

The Cribs hail from Wakefield and were originally made up of three brothers, Ryan, Gary and Ross, until Marr made his entrance last year to join the band for a project which yielded into a full length album.

Music wise, The Cribs have always been put in the indie scene. This is more because of their ethics than the music itself, which has evolved since their first album. This album wasn’t really a big part of the music scene at the point of release. At this point critics were labelling them as “A Strokes covers band” and that the album lacked a sense of direction.

Earlier songs such as Another Number and Direction were a hit with the crowd and contrasted well with the new songs.

Drummer Ross mounted the drum kit various times during the show and it amazes me how it is humanly possible to still drum whilst in that sort of position. It’s the extraordinary stuff like this which turns the ‘gig’ into a ‘performance’, something The Cribs have picked up on through the years.

An excellent example of this was Men’s Needs, from the third studio album, which certainly got the
crowd going. This was the song which sparked interest and landed them commercial success. Played towards the end of the set, by which point a lot of people would usually be tired from jumping around, the crowd’s excitement seemed to rise as though everyone had been force fed Red Bull.
Having recruited Johnny Marr, the newer songs did have a bit of a Smiths influence although the well-known ‘Cribs sound’ was certainly apparent throughout the set. Marr fitted in well with the line-up, making it hard to imagine The Cribs without him.

The gig proved that The Cribs are a brilliant live band and the experience certainly was amazing. With a mixture of old and new songs it was a guessing game as to what they would or wouldn’t play but the songs that they did play created what turned out to be a well mixed list. The Cribs are one of those bands who really know how to get a crowd going and they accomplished this through both their stellar songs and earth-shattering performance.